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Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam has already made an appearance on WiiWare. If you’re familiar with this previous version, or the PSP version released earlier this year, then you’re not really in for anything new. The only question is whether or not the control issues that plagued both the PSP and Wii are still her on the DSi, or does the stylus resolve all that?

Basically, the DSiWare version is almost identical to the Wii edition. It really is only missing the two-player competitive mode present on the Wii. The visuals have done a surprisingly good job of making the jump from the Wii to the DS. YYCJ retains its cutesy style and bright color palette, although some of the menu screens are a little unclear. The wild variety of character all look as they’re displayed on the top screen, leaving your touch screen to manage the game.

Gameplay is pretty simple. Customers magically appear in your restaurant on the top screen; you pass them a menu then provide them with what they order. Dividing the play area into halves is a clever move, with “pigeonholes” at the top of the touch-screen corresponding to the seats in the restaurant on the top screen. Rather than dragging your meals over the characters as you could in the Wii, you simply pass them along through one of these holes, and that’s also where customers leave their tips at the end of a meal. It’s nice and clear, and on the whole works much better than the control system on Wii.

You’ll begin with a humble hot dog restaurant; you learn the ropes of taking orders and passing out meals. At first it’s a case of simply putting the right ingredients on a plate, but soon you have to heat it up, add ingredients in the correct order, and apply sauce and more. It’s very straightforward at first, perhaps too much so; your first ten minutes will be spent making different kinds of hot dogs, after which you move onto ten minutes of burger-making. To its credit, the game adds new elements in every level and does so slowly to avoid overwhelming you too quickly, but it’s worth saying that your average gamer will find the game more than a little easy at first.

Following your last burger you begin to create rather more complicated culinary offerings, but the general gameplay is the same – receive order, process it and move onto the next level, where you’ll generally be doing the same thing but in a different order. If you wanted to be really picky, you could say you’re doing the same thing in every level, and only the graphics change, but that would be ignoring the fact that even with the improved touch-screen controls, it gets very difficult later on.

Truth be told, YYCJ’s difficulty is probably the only reason the game can be recommended to experienced gamers, although chances are you’ll have stopped playing well before it becomes challenging enough to be worth your while. The first two levels or restaurants are insanely easy, and sometimes you only need to serve two or three customers to earn enough tips to pass the level’s goal, meaning you can ignore anyone else who walks through your door and simply wait for time to pass. In a game which should pride itself on being frantic and a test of reactions and accuracy, you spend most of your first half an hour with the game waiting for your patrons to finish eating or drinking whatever it is you made them, which doesn’t make for a gripping introduction. If you persevere past these opening stages, you’ll find the game soon speeds up, and with more than two customers in at any one time you could struggle to feed them all quickly. Thankfully the game’s smart enough to avoid having four customers ask for burgers when you can only cook two at a time, so there’s rarely any bottlenecking, but you’ll need to be pretty quick on the draw to please everybody.

YYCJ starts out slow, but quickly evolves into a pretty enjoyable test of coordination. The touch-screen controls are decidedly better than the controls in the WiiWare version of YYCJ. And even with the low 500 point price tag, there’s still enough to drag this game down. With no benefit to getting a high score, you’re often left playing the game half-heartedly just to progress. And the repetitious gameplay gets pretty boring pretty fast. While fans of diner dash and cooking mama games may find enjoyment here, its better that they just boot up the games they already enjoy and save their money.